"Products and Product Innovations"
November 14-15, 2014
On November 14 and 15, the Iron Library, Foundation of Georg Fischer Ltd., held the 37th Conference on the History of Technology (TGT) entitled "Products and Product Innovations". Approximately 60 participants from Switzerland and abroad attended this year’s TGT. The first day took place at the Training Center of Georg Fischer Piping Systems in Schaffhausen. Scarcely any other location could have offered a more suitable ambience for the theme of the conference, since it is under one roof with the production plant of GF Piping Systems. The speakers of the first day presented the topic from very different points of view: While Wolfgang König (Berlin) for example argued that the role of consume should be stressed more in "Product Innovations in a Consumer Society", Marco Boccadoro (Losone) emphasized the importance of "Research Cooperation with Universities" for innovations at GF Machining Solutions.
On the second day of the meeting, the participants gathered at the Klostergut Paradies which is the traditional conference venue. There, the thematic spectrum ranged from Kilian Elsasser’s (Lucerne) presentation about the "International History of the Rail Track System at Swiss Federal Railways" – aptly titled «Ta dam ta dam» – to Nabil El Barbari’s (Schaffhausen) speech on the topic "From Malleable Cast Iron Fittings to Plastic Fittings: A 150-year Success Story" – in line with the start of the production of malleable cast iron fittings in Schaffhausen exactly 150 years ago. The conference program was enriched by a tour of the plant of GF Piping Systems and the screening of Iwan Schumacher’s movie "Fire and Flame" about the Art Foundry St. Gallen.
